Pet Shop Boys LIVE

As the Pet Shop Boys are a true rock’n’roll band, the Liverpool Summer Pops date of their Pandemonium tour featured a completely different set list from their Manchester date…well ok. It didn’t. But it was another good show and played well in the arena setting. The other thing of note was the “technical difficulties” at the start of the show which saw various bits of the opening song Heart blasted out irregularly. Oh and that the T-Shirt I bought kind of fits me. So once I’ve lost a few more pounds it should be just about perfect. Mind you, even if it hadn’t have been, I’ve long felt that the lack of a PSB T-Shirt in my wardrobe has been an oversight that needed correcting.

Pet Shop Boys LIVE

It’s no secret that I think (know) that Pet Shop Boys are the finest British pop group of the last twenty-five years (if not of all time, but I’m not getting into that right now) and it warms my, ahem, heart, that their Outstanding Contribution award at the BRITS has seen something of a critical and commercial renaissance (witness the sold out O2 concert, at a capacity at 16,000) and, in my opinion, recent album Yes was their best since 1993’s Very. All of which boded well for a great night’s entertainment at the Manchester Apollo.

Ok, so £15 for a programme was more than a little bit excessive (even if it was obviously produced to the same exacting high standards that everything they do) but I suppose you’re not forced to buy it are you? And when the evening’s entertainment is as good as this was, you can forgive almost everything.

It’s difficult to imagine that a stage set which consists of little more than a few hundred cardboard boxes could be so entertaining, but these are no ordinary cardboard boxes. Well…no, they actually are ordinary cardboard boxes, but they do double as video screens, walkways, weapons…well you sort of get the idea.

If their last tour was decidedly a “hits” experience, the Pandemonium tour is slightly different. All the usual favourites make their appearances but thrown in were some surprising choices, some of which had never been performed live by the boys before. The problem with this was that whilst the die-hard fans (such as myself) appreciated the likes of Two Divided By Zero, Why Don’t We Live Together?, Kings Cross and lesser hits such as Love Comes Quickly and Jealously, those just in attendance for the hits may have been left slightly non-plussed, especially when some of these tracks were lumped together.

Still by the time the evening ended with the encore of West End Girls, few will have felt disappointed. The Pandemonium tour is another winning spectacle from the Pet Shop Boys and proves that there is plenty of life left in them yet.

Disco 4 - Pet Shop Boys

It's not very often that I would call something the Pet Shop Boys released "perfunctory"; sadly this is one of those rare occasions.

It's not the concept that is a problem in itself, bringing together as it does some rather wonderful remix collaborations with the likes of Madonna, David Bowie and The Killers, more that with no liner notes there isn't the feeling that this is something of a "must have". It's also not a complete retrospection of their remix work, with the omission of the Girls and Boys remix being particularly sad.

Throw in one excellent PSB own remix (I'm With Stupid) and one so-so one (Integral) and you have a decent collection but not one that that any non-PSB obsessive needs in their collection. Still, at least it's not Disco 2 all over again is it?

Cubism - Pet Shop Boys (DVD)

This concert, filmed in Mexico in November 2006 is very handily close enough to being the Summer Pops gig I went to, enabling it useful as a tool to remember that great concert by, and also has a number of differences in the set list, which means it also offers something new.

As you will all know by now, I am biased when it comes to the Pet Shop Boys (Britain's greatest pop act of the last 20 years by far don't you know) but if you've any liking of them at all, this is a very worthwhile DVD.

It's not the "spectacle" that Performance is/was (then again, it's not the boring "PSB as a real band" show that was the Release Tour) but it makes up with it by having the best set-list that the PSB have ever done live, taking from 20+ years of hits, with some classic album tracks thrown in for good measure. It also serves up the highlights from the most recent studio album Fundamental.

Throw in the high-definition filming (a vast improvement on the picture quality from the Discovery and Nightlife tour videos/dvd's) and THE best sound quality that I've heard on a live DVD from anybody and you have a wonderful must-have package. Just don't expect much from the Extra's.